It's really only a question of if/when you want to go down the Ys I & II Chronicles route because of their age. Ys I in particular is a little rough around the edges, though I still find it charming and silly in its difficulty. Ys II is a much stronger affair overall. If you're at all a fan of the series you'll want to play them sooner or later, it's just important to keep in mind you're talking about a base game that's over 25 years old.

Other than that? Doesn't really matter. Ys Seven might be kind of weird without playing Ys VI first, but I did so and wasn't particularly lost (also, Ys VI on the PSP sucks). Don't forget a lot of Ys titles are available on Steam and if possible I'd recommend playing them on that platform.

So, I beat Ys II and it's definitely a step up from Ys I's incredibly obtuse design and total lack of progression due to the 10 level cap.

My issues being that the game starts out with a bang with the boss design. First boss is amazing and still the hardest outside of the last boss. But none of the bosses are quite as impressive as that one until you get to Dallan (or whatever the wizard is called), but he was far too easy. I do appreciate that the final boss wasn't a total bullshit-fest like Dark Fact was, but I didn't how it was hard to get a bead on his second form due to the effects making it visually confusing for me. If that hadn't been the issue, I would've beat him in my second try.

Another thing that comes to play is that Burnedbless and the Shrine of Solomon are hard to navigate. They are filled with far too similar scenery and just a pain to get around in. Shrine of Solomon was probably the worst offender of the game, it's an absolutely terrible extended fetch quest. I felt less like "Adol the Adventurer" and more like Adol the Gofer. At least it wasn't obtuse like the first, but after a while I got sick of backtracking the same sectors. I never understood the need to pad out older games like this, especially when it would have been better without it to encourage replays on harder difficulties.

Either way, I really found the use of fire magic and slightly more diverse enemy design to make the combat more interesting. It takes away the need to bump into everything and make interesting bosses like the one I mentioned before. The ability to level past 10 made it so that I wouldn't completely ignore combat in the latter part of the game like the first one. It's definitely got a decent old-school charm to it as well and isn't bad at all.

Anyways, I'll take a break from the series before jumping into the next one. Not sure if I'll play Oath or VI. Had enough Ys for a good while.

You can honestly jump into any of the games without really needing to worry about missing a beat, since they typically are self-contained stories. They just consist of Adol going from one continent to another in search of adventure and there always happens to be some jerk that wants to ruin the continent/island/country for good.

I think the only exception is Ys I/II and Origin, you'll wanna tackle those in that order, as the sequel takes place right after one and Origin spoils I and II. Also, I'd suggest playing the cannon versions of the games since they're usually the best ones.

But yeah, the plots in general aren't exactly phenomenal, but the lore and backstories for the universe are actually pretty cool.

Eh, feel free to play Origin before Ys I and II. The story isn't much to write home about and Origin is just a much better game than Ys I or II.

Ed: If you really care about the story, you can watch toddy's LP of Ys I&II.

So I'm playing Origins and I'm right at the beginning as Hugo. The command for a Power Attack is Double left click + attack (z) which is pretty easy to perform on kb+mouse, but I'm trying to play on 360 gamepad and I can't get it to come out except randomly & rarely. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, as the command should be double tapping the right stick/d-pad in any direction + attacking.

So I'm playing Origins and I'm right at the beginning as Hugo. The command for a Power Attack is Double left click + attack (z) which is pretty easy to perform on kb+mouse, but I'm trying to play on 360 gamepad and I can't get it to come out except randomly & rarely. Not sure what I'm doing wrong, as the command should be double tapping the right stick/d-pad in any direction + attacking.

Any advice?

When not using a mouse, you need to attack just after you stop from a run to do the attack.

When not using a mouse, you need to attack just after you stop from a run to do the attack.

yea i figured out the timing on pad after trying it again. Seems weird that i can't do it from a full run i have to be stationary then move slightly then stop and attack to get it to come out. Whatever i'm sure it'll all work out.

The power attacks are basically worthless in Origins anyway so it's no big deal. Not nearly as bad as Ys6 where you're required to do them to make certain jumps (forward tap + attack + jump is a long jump in Ys6).

Well remember when I complained about being able to just sit in the final boss of Ys5's face and mash attack and still win? Guess that works pretty well in Celceta too (Hard difficulty anyway). Karna is KINDA busted, but then again a ton of poo poo in the game is so that's not really saying much.

Anyway, pretty good game aside from that. Much better than Ys7, although the supporting PCs, and balance of healing items were definitely worse. Think I liked the Ys7 soundtrack a little better but they both have their fair share of good tracks. If you're only playing on Hard mode, do yourself a favor and try to not use any healing items on bosses, makes them actually interesting.

Oh yeah, also of note, Celceta was kinda buggy too. Got stuck in walls a LOT, even once fell through the floor after changing party members and died. Bunch of hitbox issues where poo poo just didn't match where it should have been, kind of annoying. Not a major problem overall really, but I was kind of surprised at how often weird poo poo happened.

Gwyrgyn Blood fucked around with this message at Dec 30, 2013 around 00:02

I'm just annoyed because I have like 98% of the map uncovered and can't find that last 2% . The game is a blast though and out of all the characters I was controlling throughout I find the last one to be the most fun to play as.

I was in the same situation, and I got the last couple of % points by focusing on the map screen and trying to pinpoint any areas that had slightly grey borders rather than black. I find it's a little easier if you switch to "warp mode" so that all of the icons for the resource points and junk go away. Worth noting that there is at least one border that will always remain grey (south of Highland). You also get a % points by actually entering the final dungeon.

Well remember when I complained about being able to just sit in the final boss of Ys5's face and mash attack and still win? Guess that works pretty well in Celceta too (Hard difficulty anyway). Karna is KINDA busted, but then again a ton of poo poo in the game is so that's not really saying much.

Anyway, pretty good game aside from that. Much better than Ys7, although the supporting PCs, and balance of healing items were definitely worse. Think I liked the Ys7 soundtrack a little better but they both have their fair share of good tracks. If you're only playing on Hard mode, do yourself a favor and try to not use any healing items on bosses, makes them actually interesting.

Should have played on Nightmare. It's still got the issue of copious healing items and Karna, but it's still a pretty good challenge as enemies hit hard.

quote:

Oh yeah, also of note, Celceta was kinda buggy too. Got stuck in walls a LOT, even once fell through the floor after changing party members and died. Bunch of hitbox issues where poo poo just didn't match where it should have been, kind of annoying. Not a major problem overall really, but I was kind of surprised at how often weird poo poo happened.

I have made a terrible mistake. Lava dragon is kicking my rear end. And every boss so far has required grinding/gearing up to beat

Does the difficulty smooth out or should I just restart?

Well, the thing here is that there is no chance to forge your weapons, but there is a better sword in the caverns. I'd suggest you at least try to level up at least once and focus on using wind magic over and over on the boss. He's not that hard, just wait until you get to the next boss. Now he's completely bullshit and I was playing on Nightmare.

Speaking of Oath. Game is so horribly unbalanced in difficulty. Game can go from dead easy to brutally hard on a dime on Nightmare. It's so dumb. Also, the combat is pretty simplistic. I'll still take the party system games over this one.

Yeah I found the sword, the problem I'm running into is the level/str wall I ran into on every previous boss. I hit for fuckall damage, he hits me hard. I go level up/gear up (not an option here) and suddenly I'm hitting hard and taking a lot less damage.

Obviously there's the 'rpg' part of the game, but I find the mindless grinding boring because the regular enemies are just fodder.

Well... mostly boring, whacking things with Adol's frenetic melee flurry is actually pretty entertaining, just not walking back and forth on the same screen ten times to gain a level

The intended level for the dragon boss you're on is 15 or 16 and you should be there if you killed most of the stuff on the way there. You're supposed to hit him for very little, the way to kill him is to exploit your new wind magic to get multiple hits in. Downthrusts on the tail also work very well.

Death Priest fucked around with this message at Dec 30, 2013 around 21:25

Obviously there's the 'rpg' part of the game, but I find the mindless grinding boring because the regular enemies are just fodder.

Look, you're not playing Oath in Felghana right if you don't die to every boss 5-10 times minimum the first time you play it. Just keep at it and eventually you'll pull through! My personal experience was that the lava dragon was one of the hardest bosses in the game the first time I played it, so it's really fine if he's kicking your rear end, he's one of the harder bosses!

The level gating is mostly there to make sure you're fighting most of the enemies, since you can run away so easily once you get the dash and double jump. It should be possible to beat most bosses below the "expected" level as long as you don't run from most enemies, at least on Normal and Hard. Although some bosses like the fire dragon are so tedious to wear down over multiple deaths that I've grinded or lowered the difficulty.

I kind of hope that whenever they try something new with the series again, they try going the opposite direction as 7/4C and go for less RPG factors. Something maybe like Illusion of Gaia where you get a reward (HP max up, strength up, etc) for clearing a room for the first time, but that's it.

Of course that's probably the exact opposite of what they'll do sadly.

For some reason I thought it would be fun to play Ys Origins as Toal on Nightmare hahahaha I sure was wrong.

Everything was fine until the first boss who I struggled with for a good while. The worst offender, however, was that demon trap room where you have to be in boost mode to not be teleported away. You don't have enough boost to kill all the enemies so you need to boost, dash in, kill one of four, dash back to the entrance which is the only safe area, and wait for your boost to come back. I failed this multiple times and had to walk the long walk back. It was awful. Now I'm at the second boss (Velagunder) and he can heal himself and I DON'T FEEL LIKE DEALING WITH THIS RIGHT NOW so I'll come back to it later maybe?

The level gating is real though, and one of the things I really dislike about Ys games.

The level gating wouldn't be such a problem if some of the bosses weren't so drat cheap. There's far too many bosses that are near impossible to avoid taking damage on and/or have a small opportunity to get hits on.

Oath has probably been the worst offender so far with this because while there's some fights like the lava dragon and the first Chester fight which are fair and have clear cut strategies and counters, there's stuff like the Ice Dragon, second Chester fight, lava bat and the last two bosses that get incredibly cheap. They just love throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you, while giving you such incredibly small and/or risky opportunities to get damage in. It's so much so that it really bogs down a potentially great game. It also doesn't help that air combat isn't as smooth as you'd want it.

I'm just glad that the last two Ys games have used just defense systems to avoid cheap situations, but at the same time they do lose the spacial positioning and movement strategies of the previous Ys games.

I'm interested to see where they're gonna go for the next numbered entry as it might be another major engine change.

Those later fights are geared towards you learning how to use the Lightning magic properly, because it makes you invincible and lets you go through all of their attacks. That IS the defensive system in Oath/Origins, and it's arguably a little TOO good in Oath. There isn't really a lack of ways to get in on any of the later bosses.

The level gating wouldn't be such a problem if some of the bosses weren't so drat cheap. There's far too many bosses that are near impossible to avoid taking damage on and/or have a small opportunity to get hits on.

Oath has probably been the worst offender so far with this because while there's some fights like the lava dragon and the first Chester fight which are fair and have clear cut strategies and counters, there's stuff like the Ice Dragon, second Chester fight, lava bat and the last two bosses that get incredibly cheap. They just love throwing everything and the kitchen sink at you, while giving you such incredibly small and/or risky opportunities to get damage in. It's so much so that it really bogs down a potentially great game. It also doesn't help that air combat isn't as smooth as you'd want it.

I'm just glad that the last two Ys games have used just defense systems to avoid cheap situations, but at the same time they do lose the spacial positioning and movement strategies of the previous Ys games.

I'm interested to see where they're gonna go for the next numbered entry as it might be another major engine change.

I fought Gildias (ice dragon) like an hour ago and none of his attacks made me think "how the gently caress am I supposed to dodge this guy?". He hits like a train on Nightmare, but he's boss you fight after getting the Earth magic, so you can just tackle through his most dangerous stuff. Garland is another boss I'm confused on, since he telegraphs basically every move. Galbalan is some bullshit in his second phase though since I'm still not sure how you're supposed to consistently dodge his lasers, I'll readily admit. And the bat-dragon thing is easily one of the worst boss fights Falcom has done on Nightmare, which is a shame, because if its tile-flipping gimmick was handled better it could have been a great boss.

It feels like I'm the only Ys fan completely unenchanted by Celceta. My most anticipated game of 2013 and I've played about 7 hours and have to force myself to continue.

Personally, I found it a charming game that hides its failures behind great presentation.
The one thing I don't like though is that the difficulty seems to be all over the place. I finally recruited both Karna and Ozma and am trying to get to the Primeval Lands and all of a sudden every enemy is capable of loving me up whereas before they could barely tickle me.

Fare-thee-well, oh you Barbary merchants,
Fare-thee well to the Spanish Blockade,
Fare-thee-well to the Straits of Gibraltar,
and the treacherous seas of Cathay...

I picked up Ys Chronicles from the Steam sale, and I like it a lot. I don't think I've gotten the hang of combat yet. I understand that you have to be off center when you hit the enemy, but it seems like half the time, I still get hit. Is there something I'm missing?

Also, did anyone else know that you can buy the soundtracks for Ys and other Falcom games through iTunes?

I picked up Ys Chronicles from the Steam sale, and I like it a lot. I don't think I've gotten the hang of combat yet. I understand that you have to be off center when you hit the enemy, but it seems like half the time, I still get hit. Is there something I'm missing?

Pushing at enemies by walking diagonally usually works, especially if there is a wall to move them against. The walk button is occasionally useful to make sure you stay aligned correctly.

The level / enemy design in Ys II also tends to make this way easier and less frustrating compared to Ys I.

Those later fights are geared towards you learning how to use the Lightning magic properly, because it makes you invincible and lets you go through all of their attacks. That IS the defensive system in Oath/Origins, and it's arguably a little TOO good in Oath. There isn't really a lack of ways to get in on any of the later bosses.

I fought Gildias (ice dragon) like an hour ago and none of his attacks made me think "how the gently caress am I supposed to dodge this guy?". He hits like a train on Nightmare, but he's boss you fight after getting the Earth magic, so you can just tackle through his most dangerous stuff. Garland is another boss I'm confused on, since he telegraphs basically every move. Galbalan is some bullshit in his second phase though since I'm still not sure how you're supposed to consistently dodge his lasers, I'll readily admit. And the bat-dragon thing is easily one of the worst boss fights Falcom has done on Nightmare, which is a shame, because if its tile-flipping gimmick was handled better it could have been a great boss.

My problem with Gildias is that he has a ridiculously small opportunity of attack on him and is a total roadblock because there is ZERO theming to using the earth magic for defense before this. You get it and you're expected to be well versed in its autoguard in no time. It also doesn't help that you're using this for both offense and defense, so I got even less chances to get hits in. The guy jerks you around for the first stage of the fight which is both dull and a total waste of time. The icicle attack is hard to see and drops random icicles to gently caress you over and his swoop is incredibly hard to see coming, while you're trying to dodge his previous attack. He tends to abuse this move while I'm trying to go for the knockdown too. It's just an incredibly dumb fight and just about every fight after getting earth magic is like this because I guess the game figures you can just spam that to victory which isn't the case.

Outside of the last few dungeons, the game is pretty so-so to me. The combat is far too mashy for my tastes and the normals enemies are a total joke for the most part.

Proto Cloud fucked around with this message at Jan 3, 2014 around 17:54

I enjoyed Nightmare mode as Toal for the most part but both Velagunder and Khonsclard are bullshit. On Nightmare, you slide around like crazy in the Velagunder fight which makes killing the little insects way too annoying. Khonsclard is a lovely boss in general and on Nightmare I couldn't keep up with his healing. He's the only boss where I said "gently caress it" and just grinded a few levels.

Please tell me your secrets on how to beat Nightmare Velagunder as Toal. I have been beating my head against a wall trying to kill him. The slippy-slidey bullshit is the worst part because I just can't kill the grubs fast enough without being able to land any solid hits on them.

My problem with Gildias is that he has a ridiculously small opportunity of attack on him and is a total roadblock because there is ZERO theming to using the earth magic for defense before this. You get it and you're expected to be well versed in its autoguard in no time. It also doesn't help that you're using this for both offense and defense, so I got even less chances to get hits in. The guy jerks you around for the first stage of the fight which is both dull and a total waste of time. The icicle attack is hard to see and drops random icicles to gently caress you over and his swoop is incredibly hard to see coming, while you're trying to dodge his previous attack. He tends to abuse this move while I'm trying to go for the knockdown too. It's just an incredibly dumb fight and just about every fight after getting earth magic is like this because I guess the game figures you can just spam that to victory which isn't the case.

Outside of the last few dungeons, the game is pretty so-so to me. The combat is far too mashy for my tastes and the normals enemies are a total joke for the most part.

My first playthrough of Oath was on Hard because I assumed beating Ys 7 on normal made me a Ys master, so another boss handing my rear end to me a couple dozen times was old news by that point . I guess we'll have to disagree though, because I barely ever touched the earth magic for bosses except for evading two of the second-to-last bosses' moves.

And the first phase bull applies to a lot of Ys bosses in general. Gildias at least has the courtesy to not go Dragonball Z on you like Chester does.

Please tell me your secrets on how to beat Nightmare Velagunder as Toal. I have been beating my head against a wall trying to kill him. The slippy-slidey bullshit is the worst part because I just can't kill the grubs fast enough without being able to land any solid hits on them.

It's been a while but I'm pretty sure my strategy boiled down to "hope I can control the sliding enough to kill the insects". Not very helpful, I know. I'm pretty sure it's almost impossible (or just really, really difficult) to control the sliding enough to kill the insects every time so you have to be able to dodge his attacks reliably because the fight is going to take a while. The only dangerous attack is the flame laser, everything else is relatively easy to dodge. The fight feels kind of luck based on Nightmare.